Airbozo
01-21-2010, 12:09 PM
...or What will I be doing on my Birthday...
Here’s the story;
We lost power yesterday morning sometime and then a branch fell and took out our main feed to the house. Not completely though. The service line was yanked from the house and pulled the ground wire off of the main line and twisted the wires leading into the meter. When my wife got home, she noticed that one of the wires was bare and touching the metal part of the meter housing. She immediately called PG&E and told them we had a short and not to energize the circuit until they disconnected the line from our house. They energized it anyway which started an electrical fire in my house. The SO was able to get to our main panel and throw the breaker (using a wooden stick). The main line was still active and due to the short at our meter the metal panel had 240v running through it. PG&E showed up shortly after (just as I was getting home) and then dispatched a truck to disconnect the main line, which showed up at 10:30. The crew told us we were lucky, number one because someone was home to flip the breaker and number two because we didn’t touch anything live. I can only imagine what would have happened if somebody had not been there. The electrical fire was contained to a light over the kitchen sink and the cabinet it was attached to, started to smolder. I am glad I keep an extinguisher in the kitchen. The Electrician is coming over to repair the service line connection into the meter, then hopefully PG&E will come back out to reconnect the service drop. They told me it may be Saturday or Sunday before they can reconnect us.
Oh the perils of living under a canopy of redwoods. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7792/storm003.jpg (http://img686.imageshack.us/i/storm003.jpg/)
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4232/storm006.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/i/storm006.jpg/)
Here’s the story;
We lost power yesterday morning sometime and then a branch fell and took out our main feed to the house. Not completely though. The service line was yanked from the house and pulled the ground wire off of the main line and twisted the wires leading into the meter. When my wife got home, she noticed that one of the wires was bare and touching the metal part of the meter housing. She immediately called PG&E and told them we had a short and not to energize the circuit until they disconnected the line from our house. They energized it anyway which started an electrical fire in my house. The SO was able to get to our main panel and throw the breaker (using a wooden stick). The main line was still active and due to the short at our meter the metal panel had 240v running through it. PG&E showed up shortly after (just as I was getting home) and then dispatched a truck to disconnect the main line, which showed up at 10:30. The crew told us we were lucky, number one because someone was home to flip the breaker and number two because we didn’t touch anything live. I can only imagine what would have happened if somebody had not been there. The electrical fire was contained to a light over the kitchen sink and the cabinet it was attached to, started to smolder. I am glad I keep an extinguisher in the kitchen. The Electrician is coming over to repair the service line connection into the meter, then hopefully PG&E will come back out to reconnect the service drop. They told me it may be Saturday or Sunday before they can reconnect us.
Oh the perils of living under a canopy of redwoods. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7792/storm003.jpg (http://img686.imageshack.us/i/storm003.jpg/)
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4232/storm006.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/i/storm006.jpg/)